here. [applause] that will be a book signing outside afterwards, so thank you so much. [inaudible conversations] >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979 season was created as a public service by america cable television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider.

>> [inaudible conversations] >> hello everyone. thank you so much for coming out this afternoon. my name is davis shoulders. i'm part of the event staff. politics and prose, and it's her honor just on behalf of the staff and the owners to welcome here for this event for brad snyder and his book "house of truth: a washington political salon and the foundations of american liberalism." a fe housekeeping notes i want to cover right before we get started. if you will take this time to silence any cell phones or noisemaking devices so we don't have any unnecessary interruptions during the event.

i will also mention if you are a regular come sometimes you know we ask you to put up the chairs. we will have an event following this one so after the event is over you can just leave the chairs as they are. we are honored to have c-span's booktv who comes out to many of our events, so this is being recorded. but as a part of that we would really like to have come up whenever you ask a question because it will be in the second at the reading there will be time for questions and answers, we ask that you come to this microphone right on the site of the cone just so we have a record for the tv, c-span's booktv. that would be greatly appreciated. and after the event is over, all of the copies are available behind the register and the signed line with start immediately to the right of the table. that will be it. so between 1912-1933, a group of washington rising movers and shakers met in a dupont circle rowhouse for an informal political discussion, drawn together by disillusionment with

attempted administration, frankfurter, litman, oliver wendell holmes, louis brandeis among others debate issues and event such as communism, the role of the us after the great war, and much else. in his third book, a strong progressive belief that government should protect workers something close to the liberal stand that government and approved citizens lives without impinging on civil liberties. this is an accomplished authoritative history of american liberalism. david maraniss says with his deep understanding of history and the law, brad snyder has crafted a notably illuminating and refreshing book, give the research and find written. the "house of truth" helps shape what became known as the american century. brad snyder is a university of wisconsin law professor, teaches

constitutional law and civil procedure, 20 century american legal history and sports law. he has written two books about baseball and numerous law review articles about constitutional history including the supreme court's mishandling of the case of julius and apple rosenberg, chief justice john roberts based on his judicial clerkships with henry friendly and william rehnquist and in the aftermath of the sagacious clerkship memo. snyder has contributed articles to slate and the "washington post" and has appeared on espn, c-span and hbo at the "new york times" documentaries. please join me in welcoming brad snyder. [applause] >> wow, there are a lot of people here. i really just want to first thank politics and prose. it's an honor to be standing up here. i've seen so many great authors present their work your, it's a real honor to be in this bookstore for the third time. i also want to thank all my

family, and there's a lot of them including my daughter and my son, and my wife shelby, and my parents who flew up for this event, and the a lot of my friends and a lot of former coworkers, and a lot of people who helped make this book a lot better. john milton cooper is here. dan ernst is here. victorian arched is here. a bunch of people who read this book cover to cover when it was in manuscript. and let me take that's a huge undertaking. i'm really grateful to all better here. the last time i gave a talk like this was to my daughters third pre-k class of three-year-old and four year olds and it was about what a constitutional law professor does. and like a good con law professor, i made up a powerpoint slide. i had one of the u.s. capitol. i had one at the supreme court and died one of the white house. and after about five minutes i opened it up for questions and

my first question was, why are you wearing a whale on your shirt wax. [laughing] i hope, i hope i can do a better job of eliciting questions from you about my book then why there isn't a whale on my shirt this time. the argument i'm going to make today, and implicit argument in the book is that liberalism really was founded and thrived as an opposition movement. before i make that argument and sort of delve into it i want to do some background about the book. i got the idea for the book when i was living at 1920s street northwest, which is all about two blocks from the house of truth. the house of truth is still standing at 172,719th street northwest. i was reading the bibliographical notes by a great historian, his biography of

oliver wendell holmes and he said not a lot had been written about the interactions between oliver wendell holmes and his young friends from the house of truth. that sort of set the light bulb off in my head and i thought i can finish this book in two or three years with a little bit of research, and who we are six, almost seven years later and i am finally done. it was a bigger undertaking that i thought it was. i wrote a law review article about it first and where i knew i had a book is when i discovered the papers of the man who owned the house. he was commissioner of indian affairs, a guy probably no one has ever of named robert ballantyne. he was the one who started the salon by inviting the justice department attorney for taft and freak felix frankfurter been rkg in the taft war department to live in the house. well, his papers were in a barn

for a long period of time in connecticut and till this wonderful archivist rescued him and donated them to the massachusetts historical society where they remained unprocessed. the reason why the papers were so important to the book was called his wife he started for this group house was because his wife and daughter were living in massachusetts. so he was writing about the daily comings and goings to his wife and daughter and about whatever it was up to and about who they had over that night in these letters that was in this unprocessed collection at the massachusetts historical society. so it's really when i discovered the valentine papers that are new i could help people understand what the house of truth was, what the people who were going there were doing and what types of things they believed in. basically the house was a bunch of people who thought that president taft was the worlds

worst president. they were a bunch of progressives and there in the administration, and he just thought he was sort of disinterested. he would give sort of these rambling not well thought out speeches and he wasn't, didn't really care about the issues that they cared about. the issues they cared about were more antitrust prosecutions and the rights of labor. the rights of labor, minimum wage hours and maximum hour laws. laws. lots of things we take for granted. they thought the way to achieve those goals was to reinstall theater roseville in the white house. and so roosevelt had basically handed over the white house to taft. taft was his protége, and then i think regretted giving up the opportunity to run for president again. so he started stabbing taft in the back through intermediaries. in 1912 sort of orchestrated a draft and challenged the city

republican president. first as republican primary candidate and then as a third-party candidate, what was known as the bull moose campaign. it was these people from the house of truth, robert valentine, dennison and frankfurter made the house of truth the sort of de facto campaign headquarters for anyone who wanted to reelect theater roosevelt to the white house. so roosevelt was a hero of the house but that really didn't last long. because roosevelt lost, valentine actually quit his job in the taft administration. this was front-page news in the "new york times" at the time. he quit his job, he was a highest ranking taft administration official to quit but after roosevelt lost, valentine went up to boston and sort of remade himself as an industrial counseling expert and became sort of an expert in labor-management relations.

a lot of other people including felix frankford decided to stay in washington and work in the wilson administration. of course it was a three-person race between taft, roosevelt and wilson. that enabled wilson to become one of the first democratic presidents in the white house for a long long time. so wilson all these guys stayed at the white house and theouse of truth was alive and well as a political salon. what they did was they founded a magazine. the magazine that he founded in 191414, along with herbert croley and walter lippman and felix frankfurter was one of the original incorporated of this magazine was "the new republic." that became the magazine that was the outlet for the liberal ideas. quickly, the editors of "the new republic" split with to get a roosevelt. roosevelt referred to the editors at the got angry with them about foreign policy, three anemic gentiles and three

international jews. so they sort of for a time became wilson partisans because their internationalists and they believed that the u.s. should get involved in the first world war. but there came a time where they parted ways with woodrow wilson. these former progressives rebranded themselves as liberals. at the beginning of my book quotes walter lippman in 1919 where he is describing the development of liberalism. he says that liberalism really doesn't have a coherent set of ideas. what it's against is against the sort of old corrupt party politics of the past. i actually think this is some weird branded g on here from progressivism, and the rebranding is this. progressives believed in government. they believe government could

solve most of their problems. i think these liberals from house of truth still believe in government, but also of a 1918, 191919 started to recognize its excesses. let me give you some examples. litman was really shocked and told the wilson and other people in his administration that they shouldn't be censoring newspapers during the first world war in 1918. 1918. and then in 1919 wilson was in paris in the run-up to the paris peace conference and he became more disenchanted with the administration because they were censoring the foreign war correspondents. felix frankfurter served on wilson's presidential mediation commission which enabled him to go out west and report on two major events. one was called the deportations where they were reporting against federal law some immigrant laborers, at the another was the case of tom

mooney who was a labour leader who is convicted of murder for a bombing on preparedness day aced on perjured testimony. i think both litman and frankfurter began to see that there was too much power, and that especiay in wartime that itas really bad thing to censor and silence antiwar critics. the sort of last piece here is the espionage act which was passed in the wilson administration along with the sedition act of really silence and you antiwar critics. and in 1919 in november, oliver wendell holmes junior, who was adjusted on the supreme court and irregular at the house decided a case called abram delisi dissented in the case and it was there that holmes really start to articulate what we consider sort of our foundational principles about free speech and really began sort of the supreme court's

free-speech jurisprudence. i think it was with this opinion and it was the parting of ways with roosevelt where holmes really became the hero of the house. what the people announced it was quite remarkable. in 1912 when holmes met all of these people he was really an obscure justice. he was marking the days until his retirement. he felt like he had not really escaped the shadow of his famous father who was a physician and a poet and one of the founding editors of "the atlantic monthly." so he had marked 1912 on his calendar because that's when he would've served ten years on the supreme court and he would have been entled to aull pension. but his relationship with his people at the house of truth took someone who sort of disenchanted being on the supreme court and sort of just was looking to get out into an american liberal hero. the odd part about that is, by

2017 standards, holmes wasn't all that liberal. he basically believed in deferring to government with a small exception on free speech and fair criminal trials. but he played an important role and i think the house activism in the mood that turned progressivism into liberalism and a liberalism a thriving opposition movement. let me explain about that. i think liberalism as a opposition movement really began during something called the palmer raids. wilson's last attorney general was ike i need a mitchell palmer the begin rounding up radical immigrants who were critical, many of them were critical to the work of some who were not scheduling them for deportation. and frankfurter in one of his harvard law school colleagues, another huge first amendment theorist were asked by a federal judge in boston to defend 20 of those immigrants.

frankfurter and chafee entered into a full-scale investigation of a mitchell palmer excesses and rounding up these immigrants and found scores of fourth amendment violations. should just add the person leaving this immigrant roundups was a young justice department official name j edgar hoover. well, to make a long story short, 16 of those 20 immigrants were saved from deportation by frankfurter and chafee as a result of the friend of the court intervention in the case. and to me that's the beginning of liberalism as opposition movement taking on government. they took not only on a mitchell palmer and j edgar hoover but they took them on a public. they wrote a report detailing palmers constitute excesses and the challenged palmer to go

under oath about those rates. and then in 1920 in november president harding gets elected. he gets elected on america first slogan. and liberals find themselves out of political power for the next 12 years. it's my argument during the sort of 12 years, don't despair all of you liberals in the realm, but during these 12 years when liberals were out of political power, liberalism may have been at its best. because what happens even though house of truth had broken up as a formal political salon, but liberals began forming networks. lawyers, journalists, artists, networks that will star in this house, politicians, and they begin standing up for things they thought were unfair and unjust frankfurter opposed the

15% quota on back at harvard college, that they tried to establish in 1923. he tried to save the job of an amherst college president, alexander mikel john. then justice holmes gave these some real ammunition in 1923 with a majority opinion in a supreme court case that few people have heard of. it's called moore versus dempsey and it was about some black arkansas sharecroppers, and it remanded the case for a new trial and for the first time it found that a state criminal conviction violated the due process of law. said those black sharecroppers trial for murder and other things during what were known as the rights were so mob dominate that they violated the due process clause. i think that really put fair criminal trials on the liberal agenda. they didn't give up party politics either. in 19 who for frankfurter but

not litman who became conservative, but frankfurter supporters of third-party candidate for president he supported -- you could kind of think sort of bernie sanders like candidate for president. frankfurter and litman wrote duly editors and "the new republic" about this presidential election, and frankfurter really had it out with litman privately and frankfurter wrote and said i'm not thinking about 1924. he said i'm thinking about 1944. others really chip in some of these ideas, louis brandeis he went this time was on the supreme court and had been a regular at the house of truth wrote his famous free-speech concurrence in whitney versus california. in 1927 was i think i watermark for the opssociate with there is a case of two italian anarchists who were tried and convicted of robbery and murder.

felix frankfurter i write a book about the case in 1927 really turned it into a cause célèbre. it was at that point that frankfurter was able to rally this liberal network, not on the idea that they were innocent because most historians think they weren't. but around the idea that they had not had a fair trial, that the judge was prejudice, he made some extrajudicial comments about the case while the child was going on saying he was going to make sure that those two italian anarchists were hung. so he enlisted litman who by this time was an editorial page editor at the new york world, made the world which is quite liberal really a national voice for a new trial. they went to justice holmes and to justice brandeis to try to get last-minute stays of execution in the case. they even enlisted someone who wasn't so liberal but associated with the house to do a memorial

to the two men after the event executors in 1927. in 1928 they back the first catholic major party candidate for president, al smith, and even though smith lost, the remained engaged in electoral politics and really able to shape the supreme court even with herbert hoover in the white house they both organized labor and the naacp, protested hoover's second supreme court nominee, john j parker and successfully blocked the nomination to the supreme court. and then went justice holmes retired and i think 1931, they were really able to lobby lots of people in the hoover administration and get benjamin cardozo to be the replacement. i think their biggest achievement during this time and

opposition was turning the democratic party into the liberal party. and it was there that they were able to elect to get a roosevelt president in november 1932. even though franklin, i have theodore roosevelt on the brain, but even though, even though litman hated franklin roosevelt he tried to torpedo franklin roosevelt candidacy, rank order and others as early as -- frankfurter and others -- they saw franklin roosevelt as the next great hope and they got behind early and they helped elect him, and sort of the rest is history. liberalism became the dominant movement amid american politics. i would insist that the best days may have been when they were out of power. and so for the despairing liberals and the group, i think there's a lot that can be done

by forming professional networks among lawyers and journalists and politicians, and even regular people, and remaining engaged in all aspects of political life that you think are important and that you think are outrages in this country. i think a lot of liberalism during this time. it was standing for the underdog, and that's what liberals should be doing today. with that i'm going to open up the floor, and again i thank you all for coming and it's been really fabulous to be able to present some of the ideas of my book today. [applause] >> okay. thank you. enjoyed it very much. >> thanks, steven i guess this is sort of a select question. certainlone of the ias you prested us with was that

liberals and liberalism is at its best when it's in an opposition role. what do you think about the inverse of that, this is what liberals and liberalism are in power, that things tend to go awry for some reason? is there any basis for comp is that an implication or not an implication? >> i think governing is really hard, right? i think that's what president obama would say, that coming was really hard. i think the new deal wasn't a walk in the park either. there were a lot of peaks and valleys during the new deal. i'm not suggesting that the new deal was a failure by any means. i just think government is hard. so i don't think liberals are incapable of governing or at the worst in power. i just think there's some real power to liberalism, standing up for the little guy, which is a lot of what liberalism is about.

that power i think is quite effective in opposition. >> right, okay. >> thanks so much for your question. >> the way you presented it makes me think that, i don't know if this really what you're saying, i think what you are saying is a bunch of intellectual in a house in washington got franklin roosevelt elected president. it's important in my mind because at least my knowledge of the. which also include huge factors like the legacy of williams jennings bryan, like the legacy of the labor movement, like the connection between his people in mass movements out there in the cross-section of non-elite erica in a way that at least in my way of thinking is frustrating but it is much less the case today, of connections between the intellectual elite

and the non-elite in america and the notion of being, you know, that there's a synergy rather than a conflict between those factors. i didn't hear anything about that in the talk. i don't know if it's in the book or not, but can you comment about that? ..

>> i think there was a lot of influence of the wilson administration on the roosevelt administration. you know, let's not forget that roosevelt franklin was in the wilson administration, right. he was assistant secretary of the navy which was a really important position at the time and i think roosevelt was influenced a lot by his experiences in the wilson administration. you know, some of what you mentioned about the clothing workers and robert valentine was the head of the massachusetts minimum wage commission, some of that is in my book. certainly there was a populism that contributed to his getting elected. i think of all of the people in my book, the person who was sort of the most populist or most thinking about the people was meone who we wouldn't ink

about liberal at a today. he was thinking about western farmers. he was someone who was involved with some it have grassroots movement in a way including the clue -- clue klu klux klan. i don't think you're wrong. some of these elitists were elitists as our elites today. [laughter] >> progressive movement and wilson have taken heat for today. how did that play out, what were their views? >> yeah, thanks, greg. it's a great question.

i think they were really blind to raise for a long time. the best i can best put it, it wasn't the most salient issues for a long time. the rights of labor and unions, they thought that america's biggest problem is it wasn't an industrial democracy. centralization had created all the sweat shops and that was their issue. the person who made them aware of racial issues at least in my opinion is somebody who usually is thought us of having poor record on race and that's justice holmes. not only the opinion moore v. dempsey, when he denied execution, he wrote in one of

his opinions, he said the world cares more for red than for black. southern blacks come before me every summer first day of execution and this case in which the guys six years of appeals doesn't come close to sort of constitutional violation that is i see in the south and, in fact, holmes stay execution of two black men in kentucky who had been sentenced to death to rape, that same, i would argue that it was holmes that in the late 20's started opening -- opening the eyes of people like frankfurter. it didn't bother them that the black middle class which was blocks away from the house of truce was being kicked out of

federal jobs and were really hurting as a result of the wilson administration. thanks, greg. >> nice to see you. i hope you will humanize with us a little bit. how did you come out to write the story and then what was your favorite part of the actual research? who is your favorite research? >> that's a great question. i sort of talked at the beginning about robert valentine's papers who is the uner of -- owner of the house of truth. when i came across two black men from kentucky who had been sentenced to death for rape and i really didn't know what case holmes was talking about when he said the world care ifs for men -- red than black but i had a

couple of suspects, so i went through at the national what -- archives, so i went to the court office files and i found holmes' handwritten day of execution and it's actually in the book. it's impossible to read mind you and i type it out in the textbook. that was a sort of big eureka moment for me because it showed what holmes was saying when he was chastising liberal friends. >> and your favorite research part of the story? >> that was it, that was it by far. that was my favorite research moment by far, thank you very much. >> hi, i'm very interested in the difference between progressives and liberals and i

want to just give two broad areas and see if you agree with us. so progressives, the emphasis was on long-range collective good without worrying about individual rights. first amendment and so on, and an example of this would be the holmes' decision on the black woman who was sterilized. >> well, she wasn't black, carrie buck. i have some experts in the audience. >> let's put that part aside. the fact that holmes did say, whatever it was -- okay. and the eugenics movement in individual states and in the 1920's the quotas for

immigration. i think of that as all -- the quote is that duplicated 1890 census for immigration reform, so i would think of all those at the very minimum consistent with progssivism but not consistent with liberalism. and then the application as you mentioned of the bill of rights to the states like in terms of fourth amendment, i would consider that consistent liberalism but not really in the purview of progressivism, not that they were against it or it was just not part of their plan, is that -- >> yeah. look, you sound like a law professor at one of my faculty talks trying to pin me down on the definitions of progressivism and liberalism. i don't think you're wrong. i think they are very e e

e amorphous. there's no body of principles that liberalism embodies. i just think as time changed just like today a few liberals call themselves liberals. they call themselves progressives, right. i think that there was a rebranding from progressivism to liberalism. maybe it was some of their perceived failures of the wilson administration. i might add there were a lot of successes in the wilson administration on their agenda but i'm not willing to blame anything on liberalists. i think i could phone a friend here because there's an expert

in the audience. there was a wide swath of people who thought eugenics was good signs all along the political spectrim -- spectrum. i don't think i'm willing to do it. the first juris prudence was impoverished. he had some in december, november that descented from the espionage conditions. before that holmes wrote an opinion in 1909 that said the only thing the first amendment protected was freedom from prior restraint. that was pretty much the state of it. that just meant you could go ahead and publish but then you're going suffer the consequences, criminal or otherwise. i don't think there was a really talk about rights until sort of

they started being a bridge during the first world war. >> and when the prerogatives were no longer in power? >> right, that's my answer. i thought you might be onto something but i think progressivism and liberalism are pretty broad categories and maybe different nomenclature over time. >> okay. >> sure. >> hi, thanks for writing the book. i had read the book. i see your book is a bit thicker so probably a lot more to it than on dupont circle which was more general. i was wondering, did you have any relationship to that gentleman? >> i know people that know him very well and he's a very god writer and historian and i had started my book when he started his. for a while i thought, well, i'm not going to read this until i'm done, but, you know, i think he

focused on different aspects. he widened his book from beyond the house of truth who were living in dupont circle and he was poe -- focused on foreign policy connections to the house and i was focused on the legal connections and i would go back to the beginning of my talk that i think what makes my book different understanding who robert valentine was and how he was really the visionary and that most of the ideas from the house emanated from him and i think that most people didn't know that until massachusetts historical society processed those papers and i was able to look at them. >> got you, thank you. >> i think he's a very good historian. >> the house on new york avenue? >> his house was torn even though he donated with half of

his estate to the federal government. justice holmes' house like many of great monuments is now a chinese restaurant. [laughter] >> 17 -- i think it's 1720i street justice holmes' house. >> okay. >> at the beginning of your lecture, your talk you said to liberals and progressive or democrats in the audience no to despair that there was a time in history which is sort of similar to what we are facing right now if you weren't a supporter of donald trump and -- but you thought, if i'm understanding you correctly, you know, liberalism was able to flourish or at least became stronger during this period of obstacles, of whatever, but was it the same circumstances where u had a

senate and a house that was of the same party? is it similar in fact, to the supreme court and the composition of the supreme court and give me hope because if it's just going out on out there, you know, give me hope. [laughter] >> so i say this, i don't know, i'm guessing it was the case in the 12 years that the house and senate were democratic during portion of those 12 years. i have to go back and look. i know that there's a senate historian in the audience that could help me with this question. i'm reluctant to make one to one historical parallels and i was trying to be careful not to do that. ic what my book shows that at a time when things looked hopeless for people who called themselves liberals that they were quite effective. right. i think that's my sort of

message, is that, look, when liberalism started, they didn't have a lot of people in the halls of congress or inthe white house who were their people. still they were able to get things done and still quite effective in really creating change and in fighting for the underdog and i think that can happen again. in terms of today, i mean, i wouldn't despair for a number of reasons. i think our institutions in the rule of law are stronger than any one person regardless of who the prent is. young liberals should go in despair because all three houses are in control of the party. >> thanks. >> thank you. any others, don't be bashful. i can start calling on people like i do in law school.

[laughter] >> i would like to can -- ask you about your relationship of what you study in the book and one thing that you have alluded to that i understand what it might have been a major precursor of the deal was a lot of the governance that was actually going on in new york state and in some of the other more progressive liberal states during that period of time when they were shut out of washington and basically it's always been my understanding that much of what was done in some of those leading-edged states really became a major factor in the policies that were put in place by the new deal and that was a very important foundation of the

new deal so i would be interested in hearing how that relates to the aspect of liberalism that you've been studying. >> you're absolutely correct. so a lot of of what the people associated with the house of truth believed was that a lot of this political change should be occurring at the state level that i'm referring to minimum wage laws, maximum hour laws, you know, rights of organized labor, they were really looking for those things to occur at the state level and people like lewis and félix frankfurter were defending laws coming out of oregon, they were defending these types of laws, so what they wanted for a long time was a supreme court not to use the due process clause to strike down this legislation. so certainly part of the liberal agenda or even if you don't call them liberals at the time, former progressives was to go to the state level, get progressive

legislation passed an hope the supreme court doesn't strike it down. they certainly put a lot of emphasis on change on at the state level but i wouldn't rule out what the wilson administration did for them because there was a lot of progressive legislation and a lot of things they were able to accomplish during the war, for example, they were able to start frankfurter an 8-hour day. that was a big deal to limit workers to an 8-hour day. i think, yes, there was a huge emphasis on the state level, you're absolutely correct. some of the things that roosevelt did in new york was done with the advice of people like frankfurter and others. i agree, that played a huge impact on what they tried to achieve and another reason because all three houses of the federal government are in the hands of conservatives an not liberals that liberals should just give up.

great question. >> thank you. >> right. that's brandeis. well, i'm not seeing anybody to rush to the mic. another of the ideas that you alluded to wasn't really until folks of the house of truth specially -- the real meaning of freedom of speech, free speech. what were things like in the interval between the bill of rights and the time, were that things -- they were never really challenged in any way or so many difficult issues with free speech over that time or we didn't have -- >> yeah, i think what i would

say, repression of free speech. free speech clause and 14th amendment didn't apply to the states. it only applied to the federal government. states could really run rough shot over the rights of people's free speech and not even get challenged in court and in the gilo case, gilo lost. i think there was a lot of repression of free speech. i think where litman comes in he's not on the van guard. he sees what's happening with the sen corship with the press at home and abroad. he writes a famous book called public opinion and how public opinion gets manipulated and people vote based on pictures on their heads rather than what's

going on in the ground because they don't have information, a book that seems pretty timely. that's where litman went. litman a socialist and becoming a progressive and moving to the house of truth and takes a dramatic right-ward turn and he and frankfurter part ways over some columns that frankfurter view appeasing nazi germany before the war. litman is a complicated character is are a lot of ople in the book. thanks. >> two things.

one is, the democratic party, to what extent the liberals in the democratic party in the roosevelt administration and the roosevelt coalition that -- was it -- they recognized that they weren't doing things for black people in order to keep the coalition together, something that johnson finally reversed in '64 being a great demarkation and so i wondered about their attitudes then, not harry but one of roosevelt's chief advisers says he cared for fellow but he cared more for southern fellows that liberals were using southern white segregationist voters to -- their numbers to stay in power. >> you're absolutely right. it's beyond the scope. my bookends in 1933 with

basically fdr election and culminates with the death of justice holmes in 1935. you're absolutely correct. there's a lot of literature about this nelson and others have written about this, but i think that goes into things that my book is about that liberals were late to the party when it came to race and that even during the period of 1919 to 1933 that they weren't so great on race. and we -- were willing to overlook problems with race to come back into power. >> they went their way to push black people out so many of them started toward the democratic party even in the 20's before roosevelt and your friend was known -- this is at least what i have heard, money from stone mountain. >> that's not quite the way it happened in my book.

to me what happened in stone mountain was a dispute over the money. >> right. >> and what he was good at spending money that he didn't have. >> well, that's entirely different. [laughter] >> he's a colorful character. he wanted the money to put into the confederate memorial and, of course, the man who built mount rushmore, so the confederate memorial became sort of the precussor -- precursor and i sort of used mount rushmore as a metaphor. they destroyed what he did on stone mountain. >> it reminds me of one of the political quotes, the bigot governor of georgia. sure i stole $5,000 but i did it

for you. [laughter] >> very good, thank you. [laughter] >> thanks for your talking. most of this has been inward looking in terms of the united states, did the people in the house listen to any voices from the outside? an awful lot was going on, rise of fascism and, et cetera, how did that have any impact if any? >> this is a great question, thank you so much. two people that lived in the house were not u.s. citizens, lauren christy was a canadian citizen working in the justice department, was one of the original residents to the house and another person working in the british embassy, oh, my god, i'm blanking, persie, was one of the original residents and when they went to paris in 1919 a lot of people ended up at the house in 1919 and harold who is a british political scientist.

there was a hu british influence on the house and a huge international influence on the house particularly when it came to organized labor. the u.s. start today get in world war i, we can't make the same mistakes the british made during the war. so certainly there were both positive and negative influences coming into the house and into the country and because of the house's network that extends well outside of the united states, great question. anybody else? >> thank you so much. >> thank you for having me. [applause] [inaudible